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. 2024 Feb;113(2):259-266.
doi: 10.1111/apa.16978. Epub 2023 Sep 29.

Colour perception develops throughout childhood with increased risk of deficiencies in children born prematurely

Victoria Pueyo  1   2   3 , Mauricio Cedillo Ley  4 , Álvaro Fanlo-Zarazaga  1   2 , Liu Hu  5 , Xian Pan  6 , Teresa Perez-Roche  1   2 , Victoria Balasanyan  7 , David Solanas  6 , Sandra de Fernando  8 , Esther Prieto  1   2 , Jason C S Yam  9 , Chau Pham  10 , Marta Ortin  2   6 , Olimpia Castillo  1   2 , Diego Gutierrez  2   11 ; TrackAI Research Consortium
Collaborators, Affiliations

Colour perception develops throughout childhood with increased risk of deficiencies in children born prematurely

Victoria Pueyo et al. Acta Paediatr. 2024 Feb.

Abstract

Aim: To quantify the impact of prematurity on chromatic discrimination throughout childhood, from 2 to 15 years of age.

Methods: We recruited two cohorts of children, as part of the TrackAI Project, an international project with seven different study sites: a control group of full-term children with normal visual development and a group of children born prematurely. All children underwent a complete ophthalmological exam and an assessment of colour discrimination along the three colour axes: deutan, protan and trytan using a DIVE device with eye tracking technology.

Results: We enrolled a total of 1872 children (928 females and 944 males) with a mean age of 6.64 years. Out of them, 374 were children born prematurely and 1498 were full-term controls. Using data from all the children born at term, reference normative curves were plotted for colour discrimination in every colour axis. Pre-term children presented worse colour discrimination than full-term in the three colour axes (p < 0.001). Even after removing from the comparison, all pre-term children with any visual disorder colour discrimination outcomes remained significantly worse than those from full-term children.

Conclusion: While colour perception develops throughout the first years of life, children born pre-term face an increased risk for colour vision deficiencies.

Keywords: childhood; colour vision; development; eye tracking; prematurity.

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References

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